


Autumn

by Leyenn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Depression, Episode Related, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:05:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coping takes actual linear time, and is best not done entirely alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn

River stayed with him for almost three months, in the end. 

Not the most time he'd ever spent solidly in her company - oh, the things he'd never told her parents and the things he'd never get the chance to, now - but too long and not long enough, in the end. There were tears and fights and a great deal of tea, and fighting - this time with other people, bad and evil people sought out expressly for the purpose. That felt much more gratifying, to scream his outrage and grief to the universe at large, with River and her truly terrible arsenal of hand-held weaponry beside him.

There was no running. At least not on their part.

There _was_ sleeping - more than he ever usually did, and it left him lethargic and groggy and snappish, as much as it did River some good. There was sex only once, after the fighting with them both bleeding and the scent of blaster fire still on her hands - a release that got them nowhere, that felt the precise opposite of good and left them wrapped around each other for a solid day afterwards, dirty and broken and exhausted from trying to let the pain out.

"We need some time alone." She said it into his neck, with closed eyes and her hearts a quiet rhythm under his hand on her back. 

And he knew she was right, of course. Knew the terrible thing they could become, together, right now, standing on this path. Knew she'd been right three months ago as well. One psychopath per TARDIS, and they were dangerously nearing two.

He just didn't have it in him to care.

*

 

"You need some time alone," she said this time, two days later and still in bed. He pouted at her for not letting it go, at the idea for its inevitability - at the universe in general for its very existence.

"I'll be miserable. A miserable old man being miserable all alone in his lonely, miserable old box."

"Yes." She brushed hair out of his eyes. "And then one day, you won't be."

"No." He shook his head. Tired, and she could see it, and he knew that. She saw it oh so well, the way she saw everything in him. 

"Yes." 

"No." Not this time. A thousand years had to be enough. This much had to be enough, finally _enough_. 

And still, all she did was nod. "All right. You'll be miserable, and so will I, for ever and ever."

He didn't answer that, mainly because he didn't have to.

 

*

  
He dropped her off on Alpha Centauri Seven in the late forty-third century with her vortex manipulator, twelve weapons that he knew about and enough credit to buy a house, and a great gaping hole between her hearts to match the one he felt between his own.

She took something from her parents' room, something small enough to clench in one fist, but he didn't ask what. 

She gave him a kiss and one whisper of his name and then she was gone, both of them crying, and he was alone.

 

*

 

Alone, but not quite completely. Despite her insistence it was River who started it, six days after he let her go - a message on the psychic paper that he only noticed because there were certain bodily functions he couldn't ignore the way he could everything else.

_Are you out of bed yet?_

_No_ , he wrote back, and crawled back under the covers. 

_Get up and take a shower_ , she'd written back in return when he looked again. He scowled and threw the paper across the room.

When he woke up the next morning it was on the pillow beside him. Apparently either River or Sexy or both were playing dirty and two nagging wives was too much effort to try and ignore. He got up and took a shower. 

When he came back to his room, not only the bed sheets but the entire bed itself was different. He almost felt like smiling.

_Thank you,_ he wrote, and whispered, and lay back down with the paper resting on his chest and Sexy humming him to sleep.

 

*

  
They wrote to each other, linear, for months. Most of it was River nagging him to _get up_ , _take a shower, leave the damned TARDIS_ and him returning the favour with _at least I'm actually sleeping_ or _fine, if I have to eat then so do you,_ but it made it bearable - or at least made them both keep living.

It struck him on day two hundred and sixty-six, in the middle of reminding her that _no, River, you may not shoot someone just for that_ that he liked being linear with River. So much of him and her was out of sync, scattered about by the great uncaring universe for them to occasionally cross paths - it felt good to have this. 

He didn't want to feel _good,_ didn't want to _like_ anything any more. Three days of messages piled up while he tried to ignore her again, but the fact remained.

_I'm sorry,_ he wrote, on the fourth day, and her reply came instantly.

_It's okay, sweetie. I don't feel worthy of it either._

After that it got a little easier, if only a little.

 

*

 

_Every day for a week_ , River's message insisted. _For me._

 _Fine_ , he wrote back, petulant, _but you have to, too._

_I go outside every day as it is._

_Then you have to talk to people. Without shooting them._

A long stretch of minutes, and the silence in his room sounded like River sighing. Finally; _All right. But don't lie to me._

_Every day. For a week. I promise._

 

*

 

He made it to day six, a trip to thirtieth century New Neptune, before he found himself dancing in through the doors in a happy twirl, tossed his stetson-with-a-bullet-hole onto the hat stand with an underhand flick, and shouted their names.

 

*

 

He woke up to River kneeling beside him, her arms crossed on the bed and her face so very close to his.

"You didn't answer my messages," she said, voice quiet, before he could speak. "How long have you been lying here?"

He tried to think of the answer. He only heard his own voice shouting, an echo that wouldn't fade.

"How long...?"

"Three weeks," she said, and then sighed. "Oh, sweetie. Three weeks-"

He put his hand on the side of her face and showed her, because he couldn't speak the words. 

River crawled back into bed with him, curled up with him, kissed him, cried with him all over again.

In the morning she took him back down to the control room and he held her, his face buried in her hair and hers against his neck as Sexy changed all around them, became something sleek and silver and different and beautiful-new, something he'd never mistake again.

"Thank you," he whispered, and thought, and River held on tighter as Sexy hummed around them.

 

*

  
 _Nineteenth century London. Really?_

_You said I had to talk to people. Vastra and Jenny are people. Strax is people._

_New people, I meant._

_No new people. I told you._

_The miserable old man being miserable all alone in his old box._

_Yes._

_On a_ cloud _. Seriously. An invisible staircase into a_ cloud _. Was there a sale going on obvious metaphors?_

 _I'm going to kill Vastra. And what are_ you _doing, miserable old wife?_

_The same as yesterday. Archaeology takes time, you know._

_Digging up the previous residents of a dead metropolis. Did you find the less obvious metaphors at the back of the shop, then?_

_Shut up. And I talked to Jenny, not Vastra._

_Same difference. How many people on this dig of yours?_

_Seven, I'll have you know._

_And have you met any of them?_

_They're busy. So am I._

_At least I'm spending time with actual people. Or at least Strax._

_And I'm very proud of you for it, sweetie._

_Go on. Every day for a week. Your turn. And no shooting._

There was another one of those long silences, long enough to make tea in, before he got her reply to that.

_Fine. Leave the damned TARDIS, then. Go and buy a new hat or something._

He smirked at that and tucked the paper inside his greatcoat. Maybe he should go for a walk, get away from his ridiculously obvious metaphor for a while. It was snowing down in the city and he could probably persuade Strax to drive him somewhere that wouldn't involve people, even this close to Christmas.

 

**


End file.
